Bert Dirschell
Centertown
Dear Editor:
John Lyskowski raised an interesting point in his May 8 response to my April 30 LTE, where I compared the results of our health care system to the socialized medicine system in Europe nations. He stated: "Our country has not had the infection as long as many other countries."
Actually, only France confirmed its first virus case before the U.S.'s first case. France reported its first on Dec. 27. The first confirmed case in the U.S. was on Jan. 20, for Germany it was Jan. 27, for Italy it was Jan. 30, Spain and the U.K. was Jan. 31 and Belgium was Feb. 4.
The following figures are updated based on WHO's Situation Report 114, dated May 13. The first number following the nation is the percent of deaths per confirmed case. The second is the number of deaths per 100,000 of population.
United States 6.0, 24.2; Italy 14.0, 51.2; Spain 11.8, 57.2; Germany 4.5, 9.2; France 19.5, 40.2; United Kingdom 14.4, 49.2 and Belgium 16.3, 76.1. The U.S. results are still superior to all but those in Germany.
The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has projected the number of virus-related deaths that will occur in each nation, based on the social distancing guidelines currently in effect. It projects that virus-related deaths in the U.S. will increase to 147,040 by Aug. 4. Using their projected death data and calculating deaths per 100,000 population, only Germany's outcome is better than that in the U.S.
We are told there have been more than 80,000 virus-related deaths in the U.S. The CDC's website notes total deaths in the U.S., from the week ending Feb. 1 thru the week ending May 9, are currently 99 percent of the three-year average for that time period. It does appear that there is a significant lag in the reporting of virus deaths to the CDC. Once all deaths for that time period are reflected in the CDC's data the number of deaths in the U.S. will probably exceed the three-year average by 1-2 percent. One can only wonder how 80,000 virus deaths, nearly 10 percent of all deaths in the nation, cause total deaths to exceed the three-year average by only 1-2 percent.